Examples Of Daisy's Failure In The Great Gatsby

Ishaan Trivedi
Mr. Mennenoh
English 3 Honors
10 March 2023
American Dream The American Dream is a dream that all generations of Americans have yearned for, yet few achieve. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby is a man of great fortune and, from the outside, is living the American Dream. He is the topic of much intrigue, including fellow resident of the neighborhood known as West Egg, Nick Carraway. Nick is cousins with a former lover of Gatsby’s, the married Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby goes through much pain and suffering due to his love of Daisy, his popularity, and eventually his death. The novel denies and rejects the American Dream through its portrayal of Gatsby’s and Daisy’s failure to achieve their dreams and the representation

The Great Gatsby rejects the American Dream in Daisy’s and Gatsby’s failures to make their dreams a reality. Gatsby acquires a large amount of wealth, yet it is not enough for him. He never gets to be with and marry Daisy, his one true love. The American Dream is partially about money, but it encompasses all goals. Gatsby’s goal in getting to be with Daisy is contradictory to the American Dream as he cannot reach the goal. Regardless of his ability to do so, Gatsby is still trying to achieve his goal, including when he states to Nick, “I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before”, but it is not enough for him to reach his goal (Fitzgerald 110). Daisy suffers in a different way, as she is stuck between her love for Tom and her love for Gatsby. She naturally would like to remedy this situation, but it is impossible for her to change her feelings about Tom and Gatsby. Again, she cannot achieve her goals and dreams, so she is not living the American Dream. She expresses her crushing indecision between Tom and

Gatsby is beyond rich, with his parties and luxuries. He is more powerful than most Americans due to his vast wealth, but since the idea of the American Dream is based on equality, the American Dream does not exist in the Great Gatsby. Gatsby is describing to Nick his family lineage, in which he includes, “I am the son of some wealthy people in the Middle West — all dead now”, which would leave Gatsby as the sole inheritor of that fortune and very wealthy (Fitzgerald 65). On the other end of the wealth spectrum, there are the people who live in Valley of Ashes, a very poor area. This area contains people who do not have as many opportunities as the people in West Egg due to their socioeconomic status. Equality is a facade concealing the truth that people who are richer have much more opportunities than those who are poor. Fitzgerald’s contrast between West Egg and the Valley of Ashes discredits the equality aspect of the American Dream. Tom brings along Nick to meet Myrtle in the Valley of Ashes and Nick states, “The valley of ashes is bounded on one side by a small foul river, and, when the drawbridge is up to let barges through, the passengers on waiting trains can stare at the dismal scene for as long as half an hour”, in his dark description of the Valley of Ashes (Fitzgerald 24). A way to survive in the Valley of Ashes is to own a business. Part of the American Dream is to be